The Ashley-Rakahuri Rivercare Group is a community group formed in 1999 to assist with management of the lower reaches of the Ashley River. Its main aims are to protect birds and their habitat in the riverbed, to monitor breeding success, and to promote these activities to the wider public. The core study area consists of an 18km stretch of riverbed, extending from the confluence of the Okuku River down to the State Highway 1 road bridge.

In 2009, the Ashley Rakahrui Rivercare Group won the Canterbury-Aoraki Conservation Award

The Group works in close association with the Department of Conservation, Environment Canterbury and the Waimakariri District Council, and in 2005, it became an incorporated society. There are currently over 80 people on the Group’s email list.Awareness campaigns, regular trapping and bird monitoring began in earnest in 2004. Since that time, annual surveys of numbers and breeding success indicate that bird populations on the managed portion of the river have improved over recent years and are at least holding their own.